1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image creating apparatus and an image creating method, and more particularly, it relates to an image creating apparatus and an image creating method for creating cell images.
2. Description of the Background Art
An image creating apparatus picking up images of a cell on a plurality of different depth-directional positions of the cell thereby creating cell images corresponding to the plurality of different depth-directional positions of the cell respectively is known in general, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-150895, for example.
The aforementioned Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-150895 discloses an image creating apparatus including three line sensors so arranged that depth-directional focal positions with respect to a cell to be tested are different from each other. The conventional image creating apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-150895 can create three cell images corresponding to the respective ones of three different depth-directional positions of the cell, fixedly set in advance, by picking up images of the cell in focus on the three different depth-directional positions of the cell respectively.
However, the conventional image creating apparatus disclosed in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-150895, picking up the images of the cell on the three different depth-directional positions of the cell fixedly set in advance respectively, cannot obtain focused images as to cell structures distributed in positions other than these focal positions. Consequently, it may be difficult to determine the cell structures in the cell when the cell structures are tested through cell images in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-150895.